


The Hardest Part

by witch_lit



Series: The Misery of Alec Lightwood [8]
Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Cancer, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, T-cell prolymphocytic Leukemia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-16
Updated: 2013-04-05
Packaged: 2017-12-06 05:45:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/732109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witch_lit/pseuds/witch_lit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The were in love. But fate was tearing them apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Turn Away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [My Chemical Romance](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=My+Chemical+Romance).



Alec didn't, normally, drink. But he'd been alone with something too heavy still settling on his dying brain, and it had seemed appropriate. Dying, he had to snort to that. There had been a time when he thought he'd die, just a few years ago, back when Sebastian was still around. He'd been so certain of it, though he wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because he didn't have Magnus for certain then, or maybe it was something else. He didn't know, nor did he care to.

Alec was at a complete loss for everything, and so he drank. He took one of the bottles that he and Magnus kept around to sip at occasionally or party with and drank, because there was nothing else he could do. He knew Magnus would be home soon, and the thought terrified him. He'd have to tell Magnus, but not that night. He was still in shock himself, and couldn't bear explaining it to someone else.

It had just been... So quick. He should have seen it coming, with the bruises, but he... He just hadn't. He hadn't questioned it, like he should have. Angel, he was so stupid. Maybe if he had noticed it earlier, maybe there would have been a way to get help, or at least... Not have to talk to Magnus about it like he was going to. He couldn't do it, not then. It was too much for him to put on Magnus without having decided how he felt. He would just have to bite his lip and keep his thoughts to himself like he'd done before Magnus had taken the time to listen to him, which seemed like ages ago, and say he was fine when he was asked even if he wasn't.

There had never been a shadowhunter's crash course in shit like this. There had been a treating demon viruses class, but nothing so... Mundane. Gee, mundane. That's what he was now, wasn't it? Just another hollow face in the crowd of so many like him. Actually, the type he had was quite rare… But still, his body was fucking up, and it was more than just the stomach ache he had originally suspected. More than just the raised red-spots on his skin, more than just a fatigue that didn't like to go away. This wasn't fair. But then, when had anything ever been fair? He was just glad he'd gotten Magnus, at least. Magnus was more than a least, but… Alec didn't want to talk to the warlock, so he put away the bottle and climbed into bed, not bothering to brush his teeth. What's a few cavities? Nothing. Not when they'd all be rotten soon enough anyway.

He'd been having trouble the last week or two doing much of anything, finally getting bad enough to see a doctor… He wished he hadn't. He didn't want to know. He'd have to let everyone who mattered know, and he wouldn't be able to work for a while. Wouldn't be able to watch Jace's back, or make sure Isabelle got around well with her swollen belly. She'd be having that baby soon enough, too soon, it seemed. Her and Clary, mothers together. He wasn't having a baby, thank the angel, just… needing to go to the doctor for a different, entirely, horribly different, reason.

Alec crawled into the bed, pulling up the blankets so he could curl in them, wincing as he moved his stomach wrong, yet too tired to do more than that. The trip to the doctor's office, then to the hospital and the pharmacy, had taken more energy than it should have. He hoped Magnus would know better than to wake him. Magnus thought he was sick, sick with something _normal,_ so he probably wouldn't… Alec almost wanted to cry. But why? It was too much work. He didn't want to think about it now. So he closed his eyes and let himself shut down, because if tomorrow were to really come then he'd deal with everything then. He'd figure out what to make of his ruined life.

And eventually, tomorrow did come, and Alec didn't make it to the institute. He called and told them that he was sick again, but that he might be in the next day. He was still recovering, he told them. They said that they needed him there. He knew that. But he needed another day to process, to think. Then he'd go back to work and maybe pretend for a little bit that nothing was wrong. He'd tell Magnus at the end of the week. He'd smile, as much as he could, he'd pretend that everything was fine and no one would ask any questions. They would never think that things could be bad enough for them to have to intervene, and he liked it that way.

His shit was his shit.

He spent the day in a mix- alone, and with Magnus. He told his golden eyed boyfriend that the doctor's visit had been fine. Isabelle and Clary didn't visit for fear of getting ill themselves, and taxing their pregnant bellies, so it was just him when Magnus got called away to work. Him and a settling weight on his mind. Yes, he'd go to the institute the next day, he'd pretend things were fine. Then when he asked Magnus how his day went, he'd let the warlock rant. Then, when the warlock had calmed down, he'd tell him. That was how it was supposed to go.

He wasn't supposed to wake up with Magnus holding an orange bottle of white-labeled medication in his hand, he thought he'd hidden those, with a scowl on his face. Magnus knew they weren't for a cold or whatever bullshit he'd been spewing. He asked, with a tint of impatience, for Alec to explain what exactly these meeds were (and if they were legal).

"Magnus," Alec had sighed. It was then or never, he reasoned. "I… I have T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia."

Magnus had frowned, his lips settling for a minute, his shoulders sagging a bit. He knew it was bad. "What does that mean for us?"

Alec had chuckled, a bit bitterly. "It means that in four months, there won't be an 'us.'"


	2. Chapped and Faded

Part 2: Chapped and Faded

He could hardly even walk a couple of blocks to the corner store to buy milk. His medicine wasn't working right, not that he expected it to, because most people didn't live past seven months of diagnosis for a reason, and he'd only been given a pitiful four. His time was running out, and there was hardly anything he could do. He was too weak, and his cancer was resistant to meds. Or, his original cancer was.

He'd had to stop working at the institute, not that it was unexpected, quit sparring and stop looking over everyone else's shoulders because he was too slow and weak anyway. Jace had been injured the week before, and it wouldn't have happened if he'd just _been there._ But Jace was the only capable shadowhunter available, as Alec couldn't even find it in himself to have the energy to have sex with Magnus. He hardly wanted to get out of bed, only doing so when he knew he'd go crazy from laying down and stewing in his own thoughts for so long.

He didn't like to walk, because he knew that soon his warlock would notice the difficulty he had in simple steps. He'd have to get a wheel chair from the graveyard of contraptions at the hospital soon enough. A wheelchair someone else had probably died on. Angel, he didn't like the hospital. He couldn't, since the first time he saw his body light up on the screen in the test that showed up as horribly 'positive.'

He didn't want to have cancer, no one did. He thought that maybe his angel blood would fight it off. Looking at past tales and tables, the family trees and words of morticians, Alec realized that most of the longer-living shadowhunters had developed cancer at some point. He'd learned that many of the adults killed by demons were already losing to their bodies anyway, with cancerous cells floating around and creating tumors inside their muscled selves. It was almost as if the angels who had given them blood didn't want them to outlive their usefulness, their youth. Cancer, it turned out, was just another shadowhunter thing.

Dying young… he let out a little, but rough, breath, placing his book inside-down on the armrest of the easy chair Alec had brought over from the Institute what seemed to be ages ago, and in truth, was only a year ago. Alec wouldn't even be dying very young, by shadowhunter standards. Not like Max.

Twenty five to thirty years was the average age, and he was only four years shy for that range. It wouldn't be too much of a loss, would be acceptable to the Clave. Everyone could move on, stop reaching for him.

That didn't mean he wanted to die. He didn't. He could, in theory, live on, if you could call it that, as a vampire, but… He'd be giving up a key part of himself that he'd rather hate losing. Shadowhunting owned him. He couldn't give it up, because then he wouldn't be Alec Lightwood. He'd be something else, and maybe not immediately, he'd be _someone_ else. He didn't want to live as an imitation, as something fake. Besides, he couldn't even be sure if vampirism could cure his self-mutilating body any longer. He didn't want to give Magnus hope, he didn't want the warlock to have to deal with a sham of his former self. Mostly, he just didn't want to be a hollow shadow of what once was. Let the past die there.

No, he was simply going to die, like so many shadowhunters before him. That would be the end of it.

He had even gotten a calendar, and he was marking off the days as they passed as a last testament to his life. He keeps it in the bedside table easy for his straining limbs to reach, and as soon as he was alone he'd tick off to the appropriate day. He was going to die soon. It had been a month. He'd have to start packing soon, he could feel the draining of his already strained body.

Lips on his cheek snapped him out of his daze, and Magnus sat down on the armchair, picking up the book and placing the bookmark Alec always kept on the first page until he'd need it in the proper spot that had been propped open. They sat in silence for a moment, enjoying what was left of it, before speaking.

"What're you thinking about?" The warlock asked, his arm easily resting over Alec's shoulder and pulling him closer for something that could be seen to slightly resemble a hug.

The shadowhunter, well, _ex_ shadowhunter for all intents and purposes, just sort of shrugged. "Stuff."

And that was all it would ever be; stuff. His head was filled with stupid, useless _stuff._ His eyes would soon be rotting and his body would eventually be burned, and he'd never see his nieces or nephews, but that was all just _stuff._ Largely irrelevant in the scheme of things, like most everything. There was nothing he could do about it, because he'd be dead soon.

"What kind of stuff?" Magnus pressed. Angel, Magnus had been so nice to him lately. Treated him so gently, like he'd break, which really could happen, but Alec hated it. Hated it _all_. He'd been raised to obey a slap across the face and lived defending unknowing and blinded fools from very dangerous enemies. He wasn't going to die upon impact.

"Just stuff, Magnus," he sighed. 'Useless stuff."

"Nothing you think is useless, sweetpea," Magnus probably smiled a bit at that, but Alec couldn't confirm because he couldn't see his boyfriend's face. Too soon, he'd be seeing it for the last time.

Alec hesitated for a moment. "I think I should move out."

"What?" Magnbus demanded, jerking forward a bit in an attempt to catch the sickly man's eyes. "Why?"

"Because," Alec shrugged, slowly, because he could hardly do anything quickly anymore. "It's for the best."

"Whose best?" Magnus countered, like it was some sort of argument, and if he would have looked Alec would have seen the cat-eyed man's face screwing up as he became visibly upset.

"Mags," Alec sighed. "You should let me go before I become to much to handle. Before it hurts too much."

"Alec, I want to be here with you. I want to help you get better, get us through this." It was sweet, but not what Alec wanted to hear.

"I'm not going to get through this, Magnus." Alec snapped. "There's no cure, it's my own body fucking up on me. I'm going to _die,_ and it's best you get out while you can. You know it, Jace knows it, hell, everyone and their _mother_ knows it."

"No," Magnus protested, wanting to hang on. "We'll get you through this, I just…"

"Just what?" Alec asked, sick of this already. "Magnus, I don't want you to see me when I can't control my body and piss the bed, I don't want you to have to be there as it becomes too painful to move! Magnus, I don't want you to have to watch me die!"

Magnus was silent for a moment as Alec panted, trying to regain his lost breath. He could hardly believe that he still had three full months of this shit. Why couldn't he just die already?

"Alec, I don't care about how ugly it is. It's you, and I love you, and I want to be with you until the end."

Those words, simple as they should be, made it just a little bit easier for Alec to look forward to the time he had left. Because Magnus still loved him, as useless as he was, and he loved Magnus more than he loved his dying body. Maybe, against the odds, they'd get through this. Maybe he wouldn't die alone like he'd always expected.


	3. All My Favourite Colours

Magnus hated T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia. He hated that it made Alec weak, that it made the shadowhunter have to second guess everything. He hated seeing Alec in pain that only heavy narcotics could fix, and he hated that Alec was dying on him in his head before his body was even gone. Living in his head, not telling anyone anything. He was keeping Magnus in the dark about things, pushing him away. Magnus hated it. Hated it _all._

If he could, somehow, give Alec his immortality, he would. He would tear it from his skin, his very being, and wrap it around his boyfriend, if only it were possible. But Alec didn't, never would, want to live on as something other than what he was, a shadowhunter. Born and raised. Magnus would be offended about the race thing if he didn't know the man well enough to see it as impersonal(in the most personal way). Besides, Magnus probably wouldn't have wanted to become a full time shadowhunter either, much less a vampire, which was Alec's only real option for living on. It wouldn't be happening, though. Magnus had given up hope on Alec living on, just like his boyfriend had, when the blue-eyes couldn't get to the bathroom on his own.

The doctors had given Alec four months, but it seemed to be progressing so much faster than it should have been. They hadn't expected it to go on this quickly, even if all the meds Alec was hallucinating under didn't do their jobs properly. It was the angel blood, Magnus surmised. It was making Alec go bad much sooner than he should have.

Magnus had come in on Alec, earlier in the day, with the computer and a notebook carefully labeled 'Funeral of Alec Lightwood.' The warlock had nearly burst into tears at the sight of it, and had had to walk himself into the hallway, where he sank down and tried not to cry into his hands. He'd thought that with age, these things were supposed to get easier somehow. Simpler. And usually, it _was_ easier, but seeing the man he loved plotting how his own death day was to be dealt with was just too much. The worst part was that he understood exactly why Alec was doing it.

The stupid, dying shadowhunter didn't want to burden anyone if he could help it. He wanter to make it as easy as possible for the people around to accept that he was gone. There would be little fuss and less pain about how everything would go if Alec did it himself. He would be playing off how people often wanted to honor the dead's wishes, and since Alec was always known for having so few, the funeral and burning would likely go just as that little college-ruled notebook dictated.

It made Magnus want to scream. The nearly perfect life he'd held for three years, shattered in just a couple of months. Alec had cancer in every limb attached to his body, he was brimming with his own body's mistake, and he was always tired, doped up on painkillers or sleeping. The only exception, it seemed, was when he was planning his death party.

Magnus really wanted to peek at that notebook, but at the same time, he didn't want it to even exist. He'd lose a bit of himself if he had to read over those plans. It would be too soon. But a hundred years would be too soon, and Magnus doubted that Alec had more than a couple of weeks. Two more months Magnus's ass.

Magnus didn't want to lose Alec, but things like that made the warlock wonder if maybe Alec did. He was pushing the High Warlock away when he could, and was planning things like _this._ Alec had already accepted his death in a way Magnus couldn't, not without breaking his centuries old and battle worn heart. The warlock was so pathetically human sometimes, but while he could accept that Alec was going to die, he couldn't accept all that would come with it.

Disease had torn his life apart more than once, and he hated that his magic was powerless to help most all of it. His magic would just be like chemotherapy to T-Cell prolymphocytic leukemia, ineffective, destroying as much, if not more, of the good than the bad. Chemo didn't even _work_ on Alec's brand of cancer. It was too late, anyway. The stubborn part-angel was going about his life as if he were glad to die.

Alec would surely hate him for it, he knew, even _thinking_ about it, but if he could kill the rest of the Lightwood line just to have Alec live he would. He liked the others well enough, but he didn't care nearly as much about them. It was Alec's job to care about them, and it would make all of them dying easier in the long run. Unfortunately, or fortunately, Magnus wasn't so sure anymore, killing them would hardly do any good. Life didn't work that way, no matter what the high warlock wished. It was all useless.

"Magnus," Alec had called faintly, from inside the room. Magnus got up off of the floor, slowly, wiping the nonexistent dust from his pants and brushing the unshed tears out of his eyes before moving into the room.

"Yeah, sweetheart?" Magnus asked, walking over to the bed with a slight smile on his face.

"It's sillly," Alec dismissed, his voice slow and rough. "You're better at this kind of thing. Will you help me pick out the casket?" Even as Alec asked it, Magnus knew it wasn't about the casket. He was just trying to make this all more _normal._ He was failing, and spectacularly.

But Magnus just smiled and crawled onto the bed, looking at some of the options displayed on the computer screen. He tried to pretend that they weren't for the man next to him, that he wasn't cracking that thing in his chest that held all of his love. They weren't decisions about the man he loved, they were sorting through choices for someone else.

Somewhere along the way, Magnus accepted it. Alec was dying, would be dead, and there would be something after that. His boyfriend would be gone soon, burned up by the Clave. They'd have to enjoy the time they had left together, little as it was, because for the moments he still had Alec he would keep him, absolutely. He wouldn't let himself die with the boy in a blur of denial, he;d just bury a piece of love with those blue eyes. He'd make it through this, even if he lost Alec.

He'd fight for his life even if Alec couldn't.


	4. I Will not Kiss You

Alec's breathing came through a tube attached at his nose that led further down his throat. His food came in an IV drip because swallowing wasn't really an option at that stage. He could hardly talk, nothing more than mumbled words that made him ache and that unpleasant wheezing start up again. The hospital wasn't telling him that he had less than a day left, not even an estimated full twenty four-hours, but he knew it anyway. It was probably what the doctors were telling Magnus, why they had called the warlock out.

Isabelle and Clary would probably still come, even if it wasn't safe for their still swelling bellies to be around so much sickness. At least, Alec believed that Isabelle would be there. She had visited him a lot at his and Magnus's since he'd been diagnosed, and telling her had been worse than telling Maryse and Jace. She'd taken care of him, when he needed it and Magnus was at work. She was the comic relief at the end of his story. She was someone he loved having around, almost as much as the warlock he lived with.

But Magnus had to work a lot, because dying, it seemed, cost money. A lot of it. He wouldn't be doing it much longer, at least. The High Warlock wouldn't be having too many more financial concerns, as least not from him.

He was going to die. He wasn't even going to die the noble shadowhunter field death, but strapped down to a bed by his own bad health. He was going to die. It had seemed real, since day one, but… it had never seemed to matter so much until now. If he wasn't on so many medications, he probably could have felt death tickling at the back of his neck, cracking his knuckles and preparing for yet another in decay. There was a thick black stripe around Alec's neck to guide the reapers to him. His life was gone, it had slipped away, and son enough, it would be officially so.

He'd have…. no. He couldn't… Oh, _angel,_ he wished he'd pushed Magnus away in the beginning. Then the warlock wouldn't be suffering now, listening to a mundie doctor click off his boyfriend's life, in a mundie hospital because Alec was dying a disgraceful, pathetically human death. He didn't want Magnus to see him like this, he only ever wanted Magnus to see him happy and healthy, because that's what he tended to be around the warlock. That was how it was supposed to be, right? He was supposed to be content, they both were, not biting their tongues and waiting for Alec to hit the bucket. Alec Lightwood was sort of already dead, effectively.

The doctors had probably just told Magnus exactly how it would happen, anyway. Heart failure, or maybe something else would give out. His lungs. Hell, Alec wished that it would just happen already. It would be easier. He wouldn't have to see Magnus again, which he wanted so badly, yet wanted to avoid at all costs. He didn't want to see anyone, because when they stepped through the door, it would be game over. When they would open their mouthes, there wouldn't be any 'get well soon's or 'we'll get through this's. No, it was the deal breaker. The apology. Because through their lips would only pass 'goodbye's, disguised or not. The world was a sick bastard, and they knew it well. More than anyone, with all of their history.

It let him have a time with Magnus, a time when everything was as good as it could be for someone like Alec. Everything was exciting, the world a new situation, a breath of bliss. It was the only burst of color in Alec's washed out and filled-with-holes life. Magnus came bringing a rainbow, love and a security that he had never previously known. Then it seemed, as always, the (ex)shadowhunter's nature caught up with him, and whatever realities he thought he had… fell to pieces, were laughed at and ridiculed by the heavens because it was wrong for him to hope, to have.

Wrong of him to have love. He just wished that the dream tha had settled itself in his chest long before the cancer's tumors could once again be more than just a hope to hold on to, to slip through his fingers as he tried to keep his grip. He wished that life hadn't killed him. But it was too late for worry or wandering. He was dead now.

When Magnus walked through those doors, he'd… he'd tell his lover to go. He couldn't see the warlock again, he couldn't hear the wretched goodbye that would be given. He only had to die once, didn't he? Not again and again with those words. Couldn't he just… they just…

A knock broke the silence of the hospital room, and Alec wanted to refuse entrance. But he couldn't speak loudly enough, and his heart wasn't really in it. He looked away as the warlock came into the room, his pace moving closer to the bed Alec was propped up on. He had to. If he did, then, he'd ask something horrible of his boyfriend. He couldn't do it. It would be too selfish.

"Alec?" Angel, he loved that voice. He loved the man who it came with, his love for tea, his clever humor and his ease with so many things Alec had trouble adjusting to. He loved the smiles that used to be, every morning (that they hadn't fought, which they rarely did), he loved the way Magnus raked back his hair when he was frustrated or working on something carefully. He'd loved the balance they'd found. On the even days, Alec used to make breakfast and dinner, and on the odd, Magnus would do the same. Whoever got up first made the coffee, or the tea, depending on who it was. It was nice, the nicest thing Alec had ever had, and he would never be allowed to have it again. To have Magnus again.

"Mags…" Alec whispered, and even with just that, his throat felt uncertain and clogged, as if waiting for a cough. A reminder that he was dying, that he wouldn't have the man he was calling for anymore.

"Sweetheart, look at me," Magnus asked, and Alec wanted to. But he couldn't listen to Magnus say goodbye because that was all that was left for them, all of Magnus's other cards had been long since played or discarded. The final call on the deathbed. So Alec just shook his head, not wanting to know.

"Why won't you look at me?" The warlock asked, a sad patience settling in his voice.

"Mags, I can't," He coughed, finally, though when he did it seemed like it would never stop. The beat of his heart picked up so strongly that by the time the cough settled, he could hear it as blood dribbled down his chin. It hurt. fuck, it hurt so much, and not just physically.

"Shit, are you alright?" Magnus asked, panic leaking into his tone before looking Alec over then going for the nurse call button. "You can still see, can't you?"

"It's not that," Alec finally said, fighting back that damned cough. "It just wouldn't be fair to you." Each word, every syllable, was pressing into his chest, his throat, begging to rip him apart. "Just… Promise me you'll smile. When I'm gone."

"I… What are you talking about?" Magnus asked, moving his body so he was in Alec's line of sight.

"Just… don't say… goodbye… until I'm gone." It was getting too difficult for him to talk. Words were becoming his enemies, not that they'd ever been particularly good friends, and his vision was beginning to blur. "Shit… Mags, I can't… ask you.. to be… true, and… you won't…"

And Alec was right for it, It would hurt less that way. He wouldn't have to hear Magnus say goodbye. Or anyone, as he was suddenly hard-pressed for time and the nurse came too late to the late shadowhunter's room.


End file.
